Organisational design will eat culture

Culture is too slow

We were speaking at the IMEX conference and covered fours subject, culture, strategy, innovation and engagement. Amazing conference. Amazing sector. And a sector that is dealing with a lot of challenges, but also some very interesting opportunities. We were asked to brief our audience (managing a total budget of 2 billion) on what the best minds think on these subjects. As we were preparing and talking about the IMEX gig, we came to the conclusion that culture change is too slow. You need to speed it up. You don’t have the time.

Why does your company matter?

Why does your company matter is a key and basic question to answer when you start thinking about the future of your business. Would anyone miss you when your company is no longer there? But you also need to look ahead. Which brings us to VUCA, future trends, technology, exponential change. We gave the audience some tools on simplifying strategy to help make sense of the world. (including the strategic box).

Culture eats strategy

When you talk about strategy, you will also have to touch on culture. And in a world where everything is going too fast, how do you deal with the need to change the culture? Purpose and meaning are essential, but to install that back again takes time. Particularly when 70% of your staff is not engaged.

Organisational design eats culture

Exponential change is eating your lunch. How do you force culture? We think the answer is in organisational design. Old industrial age, command and control organisational design is no longer fit for purpose. To take a sledgehammer to culture you need to change your organisation and the way you work. To speed up (or force) culture change, you will have to redesign and rethink everything you do at a structural level and change your organisation structure.

Reinventing organisations

Books to read are “The starfish and the spider”, “The connected company” and “Exponential organisations”. But the real blueprint is in “Reinventing organisations”. And Zappos has lead the way. In culture, they already lead the way, but they are now taking the next drastic step and have decided to become self-organising, using holacracy as the model. If it is good enough for Zappo’s you can take it, that it is good enough for you.

Ron Immink

I help companies by developing an inspiring and clear future perspective, which creates better business models, higher productivity, more profit and a higher valuation. Best-selling author, speaker, writer.